Apr 18 1996
From The Space Library
Chinese scientists attending a conference under the direction of the World Monuments Fund announced that space radar images had allowed them to locate and study two ancient, previously undetectable sections of the Great Wall of China. Spaceborne Imaging Radar C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, aboard Shuttle Endeavour's Mission STS-59, produced the images in 1994. Diane L. Evans, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, called the discovery an unexpected benefit of NASA's research: "Archaeology wasn't one of our original science objectives, but the imaging radar data has been found to be very useful for this type of research." Because the radar images penetrated vegetation and loose sand, archaeologists were able to use the images to explore the site without excavation. The radar images revealed sections of the wall built in two different periods-one during the Ming Dynasty and the other during the Sui Dynasty.
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